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That night a male nurse arrives covered in tattoos and blonde highlights. He comes from out of town. He is there to monitor our vitals. He is warm and personable to us. I see the different between here and rehab. I don’t just feel like a junky. I swallow the last of my morphine pills.Day 3Between days two and three, my habit is cut down from 800mgs to 165 in a single day, with only a very small dose of the Ibogaine medicine.Emmett and I wake and again wait for withdrawal. Day three is the big one. Today we are given five times the measure of medicine as yesterday, enough to level us anywhere from 12 to 36 hours. It is known as the flood dose. We take anti-nauseants to counteract the mama birds and I try to relax. Our distributors prepare our rooms by blacking out the windows. It is ritual. Increasing vibrations. I try to meditate, to breathe. Tarquin and Gio grind up dark brown medicine from rust glass bottles in a bud buster. Gio holds it under my nose. “All alkaloids my man… so nice”. He smiles.The medicine is not cheap and is imported and distributed within Canada. I also hear that it is not easy to harvest. Our ground up meds are put into gels and set aside on the kitchen table.Gio tells me that there are going to be what seem like a lot of pills, but not to worry or argue, to just take them. He tells me to trust the process.Tarquin comes into the dark room, trailed by fragrant purple smoke. He smudges Emmet and I, Gio and then himself, ridding the place of bad spirits. Somehow it eases me a bit. I don’t know what I think about spirits but I dig the gesture. Next there is quiet chanting and prayer. Everything is completely dark. I’d spent last night and all of that day in fear, but that was changing into something else now. My anxious fear felt a bit like I was part of something significant. I also see now that before an experience of this magnitude, out of respect, one should be afraid. I was there to win a battle I’d been losing for too long. I desperately wanted to get it right. I wondered if I was ready.
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Day 4There is literally nothing quite like your own mind turning completely against you during withdrawal. Terrifying threats, then soothing rationalizations and complete inner betrayal. You’ll do absolutely anything unless (like Nick Nolte) you handcuff yourself to a wrought iron bed frame with no key. I’ve tried this also.
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